Steve Cunningham is in confident form ahead of his crunch heavyweight clash with former 5 time world champion Antonio Tarver.

“It’s a pleasure and an honor to be working with PBC. It’s fight time. Training camp is over. Training camp was hell, and that’s a good training camp.

“I know I’m prepared to do what I need to do. I’m ready to get this win and I want to look spectacular.

“Tarver is a five-time champion, legend, Hall of Famer, but that’s all going out the window August 14. He’s just another guy I have to beat.

“My record doesn’t reflect what I’ve done in the ring, but I take it on the chin and keep going forward like I do in the ring.

“People have seen the work ethic from me. They’ve seen what I’ve gone through in the ring. They saw the close decision losses. I’ve always had faith in myself and I still do.

“Tarver has fought the best out there. He’s been there. He’s been through adversity. He’s had ups and downs. There’s nothing you can say about Tarver that makes you feel like you can go in there and make him look like a bum.

“I’m 39 and I feel awesome. This is a fight. The age means nothing to me. I’m fighting a five-time champion and that’s how we look at it.

“A guy like Tarver, sometimes you have to talk yourself up to get to where you want to go and that’s who he is. He’s a good talker. That will carry on into his next career. But he’s dealing with a guy who grew up dealing with trash talking. I dealt with trash talkers in every language. The talk is for him. He sold this fight, great. But now I’m getting in there to fight.

“I’m trained by brother Naazim Richardson, he’ll never let me take anyone lightly. If you do that, that’s how you go in there and get wiped out.”

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On January 30th 2016, Sergey Kovalev will put his light-heavyweight titles on the line against Jean Paschal in Montreal. This week the two fighters met at a press conference in promotion of the fight. Here's some of the snaps from this week's events (photos credit: Bob Lévesque). ________________________________________________________________________________